This is a guest post by Chloe Trogden. She is a seasoned financial aid writer who covers specific opportunities such as grants for college. Her leisure activities include camping, swimming and volunteer work.
Dangers of Micromanagement
Many good leaders let their dedication and attention to detail become too much of a good thing – to the point where they are double-checking every detail of their employees’ work or they can’t let their employees make any
independent decisions, crippling work flow and robbing employees of a needed sense of autonomy or pride in a job well done.
Here are a few tips for how to prevent your leadership from becoming micromanagement: Take an honest look at your own management style. Is it more like micromanagement than leadership? Is it flirting dangerously close to the edge? Learning how to control this impulse will help you to create a happier work force that is more invested in their work and produces better results.
Learn to Delegate
When you maintain control over every aspect of a project or the decision making, you are micromanaging. It is important that you learn to delegate so that your employees feel empowered to make decisions and can use their unique skills to make a project successful. Rob them of that ability to make decisions for themselves, and they won’t make any.
Delegate everything from doing the work to quality control to some project management. You’ll create a network of responsibility that increase productivity and improves results since employees will feel motivated and feel engaged in the process.
Set Up a Review Process
Curb your micromanaging tendencies by setting up a review process that can assure you that goals are being met while allowing you to relinquish some control. This can include a timeline for important milestones in the project, regular meetings to discuss progress, or the compilation of reports at predetermined points in the timeline. So long as deadlines are being met and the quality of the work is where it needs to be come review time, you can rest easy that your employees are doing their work and curb your impulse to step in and control the details.
Put Something at Stake for Employees
When employees have something to gain or something to lose, they feel invested in what they’re doing and will naturally motivate themselves to do their best work. You can help yourself to relinquish control by putting something at stake for your employees and knowing that they will motivate themselves. This can include a performance bonus, a revenue share for the project, or a promotion. Think creatively to come up with a solution that suits the project.
Hire Good People
You can let go of your need to micromanage by assuring yourself that you have hired the best and most competent people to do the job – and you can do that by actually hiring the best and most competent people for the job. When you know you are leaving the job in capable hands, you are much more likely to actually … leave it. Thoroughly vet candidates, including conducting detailed interviews and checking multiple references, to find the best people for the job.
Don’t let your micromanaging tendencies drive your employees away or sap their productivity. Manage your own micromanaging so that your employees can do their best work under your leadership rather than your control.
How do you control your micromanaging impulses? Share your ideas in the comments!
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